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What really eats me up... Topic

It is a standard, but not a standard of fairness. It's simply a progressive structure that is open to manipulation based on subjectivity. Bis is advocating we change it without any reference point or target.

Posted by bad_luck on 11/14/2012 4:28:00 PM (view original):We do have a standard. All taxable income earned through labor is taxed the same for everyone. 0-X is taxed at A%. X-Y is taxed at B%. Y-Z is taxed at C%. And so on.

That's not a "standard". That's a series of arbitrary numbers pulled out of someone's ***.

Also, it decreases your incremental benefit of earning more money.... which is detrimental to motivation.

For that matter, I'm not so much complaining about paying my taxes, I'm complaining about what my tax dollars are being spent on.

Also, it decreases your incremental benefit of earning more money.... which is detrimental to motivation.

One of the gold nuggets of this thread. Our system is based on risk/reward. The lower the reward, the less risk. The less risk, the less economic growth. So what's our solution? Let's punish the risk-takers. Um, okay...at least we'll be getting the rich guy.

Posted by MikeT23 on 11/14/2012 4:53:00 PM (view original):I guess I went about 10 pages on cutting spending to reduce the deficit with badluck. Seems he wasn't interested in slowly reducing the deficit by spending cuts. None were "enough to make a dent".

How much more do we need to tax "the rich" to make "a dent"?

That's not at all what we were arguing about. Long term the deficit needs to be dealt with. But not right now, not through spending cuts or tax increases. Let the economy recover fully, then worry about the deficit. Part of it will go away through economic improvement alone anyway.

Also, it decreases your incremental benefit of earning more money.... which is detrimental to motivation.

One of the gold nuggets of this thread. Our system is based on risk/reward. The lower the reward, the less risk. The less risk, the less economic growth. So what's our solution? Let's punish the risk-takers. Um, okay...at least we'll be getting the rich guy.

The victim mentality is nuts. Nobody is being punished. I think Obama is talking about a marginal tax increase of something like 3.9%. Someone with an adjusted gross income of $260,000 is looking at a $390 a year tax increase.

That being said, I don't think we should be pushing for tax increases now. But I think Obama is using the expiration of the tax cuts as negotiating leverage to keep congress from going after entitlements.

Posted by MikeT23 on 11/14/2012 5:33:00 PM (view original):Also, that was my point. Stop funding PBS and save 450m, more or less, per year. How much do you have to raise taxes on the "rich" to get there?

Romney was unfairly ripped for the PBS comments. Essentially, we should cut the government subsidy and let PBS be a "voluntary tax", which can only survive if it can find enough sponsors. If enough people see a benefit to it, it will get funded.

If it can't attract enough funds, it will die. And if it can't attract enough funds, it SHOULD die.

Posted by MikeT23 on 11/14/2012 4:53:00 PM (view original):I guess I went about 10 pages on cutting spending to reduce the deficit with badluck. Seems he wasn't interested in slowly reducing the deficit by spending cuts. None were "enough to make a dent".

How much more do we need to tax "the rich" to make "a dent"?

That's not at all what we were arguing about. Long term the deficit needs to be dealt with. But not right now, not through spending cuts or tax increases. Let the economy recover fully, then worry about the deficit. Part of it will go away through economic improvement alone anyway.

Committing yourself fully to fixing one huge problem (the economy) while completely ignoring/neglecting the other huge problem (the deficit) seems extremely short sighted and irresponsible.

As I believe Mike previously pointed out, the U.S. government is probably capable of multi-tasking.